Contrariwise

The Lord is risen, alleluia! Happy Easter! ¡Feliz Pascua!

Moving on: Waaaaay back in January, I decided to come back to my apartment on campus to work over break. I had my regular job with Honors, but for 8 hours every day instead of 7 scattered through the week like I have when school is in session. It drained me like full-time work always does, so I was in the mood for something fun to do on the weekend.

I picked up The Catholic Standard on my way out of Mass on December 31. I was reading it after Mass for Mary, Mother of God on January 1 as Maura watched the Tournament of Roses Parade. (Can you imagine a better activity for her? Roses, bands, and television: it’s like they hold it just for her.) I was sitting next to her on the couch, flipping through, when I came to an interesting-looking ad. Long story short, we decided to go to the 8th Annual Knights of Columbus Right to Life/Defend Life Lecture at the Church of the Annunciation in D.C. on January 12.

I had to eat dinner quickly between work and leaving for the Metro shuttle, but I had mac and cheese Sara style (with a can of corn mixed in—I swear it tastes good!) and I was watching Star Trek: Voyager on SpikeTV (“The 37s”, which I like a lot), so it was all good. By the time we got out of the apartment, we were just too far away to catch the shuttle at the Union, so I suggested we wait for it at the Math building slip. We got down there just in time. We switched trains, with Maura’s public transportation expertise keeping me from getting completely lost, and finally emerged in NW.

I’d forgotten that it would be dark when we got into the city, so Maura suggested we take a Metrobus down Wisconsin Avenue to bring us closer to the church. The bus we needed was just coming through the traffic light when we identified it, so I took my first ever Metrobus ride. It smelled. My impressions have thus been shattered.

We got off the bus too early, so we had to walk for a while, and when we finally got to the church for Mass, the homily was just ending. At least we’d tried.

We all moved to the multipurpose room, where one of the producers of March of the Penguins described a new movie to us, Bella, which apparently has a clear pro-life message, but won the audience award at the Toronto Film Festival. The winner of that award often goes on to win an Oscar, but of course, Bella wasn’t even nominated. Someday, Hollywood; someday, we’ll get through to you.

Finally, Mary Healy began her lecture, “Cohabitation: The Problem So Prevalent with Catholic Engaged Couples.” She is a consecrated laywoman in a community in Gaithersburg, a professor at Ave Maria University, and author of Men and Women Are from Eden: A Study Guide to the Theology of the Body, so she came highly credentialed.

Her talk was really more about sex and relationships in the Church. She began by making an analogy between kinds of rings. A wedding ring symbolizes the kinship bond between a husband and wife that provides companionship and brings forth life. In contrast, in The Lord of the Rings, the One Ring resembles an anti-wedding ring. It creates discord between the family of hobbits in the Shire and leads those who succumb to its power to the loneliness and sterility of Mordor.

Most of Healy’s work pertains to the Theology of the Body. As she explained, our bodies are designed in pairs. Neither male nor female bodies make any sense without the other. To form a child in the image and likeness of God requires a married couple, one man and one woman. Their exchange of love brings forth a completely separate person, like the love between the Father and the Son brings forth the Holy Spirit.

We can misuse our bodies, though. Bodies can lie. When Judas betrayed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, he did so with a kiss. Lust transforms the love-filled, giving nature God calls us to into a desirous grasping for others. “Our culture,” she said, “has an allergy to commitment.” So many otherwise faithful Catholics balk at the idea of following the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Or they try to fit the Church to their desires instead of themselves to the Church. When people ask, “How far can we go before it’s too far?” it is like a man asking his wife, “How far can I go with the neighbor’s wife?”

In response to claims that premarital sex merely brings a couple closer together, Healy said, “Sinning together doesn’t deepen union, it cheapens it.” And there’s no arguing that couples who are engaged are “practically married”: A deacon one month from his priestly ordination can’t celebrate Mass. The ontological, sacramental change that gives him the power to act in persona Christi hasn’t happened yet. Marriage is the sacrament that blesses that love between man and woman. We have to let the Lord into our relationships. “Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding,” writes St. John the Evangelist (2:2). The Church’s teaching is not meant to restrict us, but to liberate our capacity to love—to truly love, as Christ did when He died for us. As Pope Pius XII said, “It is no longer permitted to be mediocre.” We must be exceptional, and exceptionally loving.

For more on Healy, and her work, see the Zenit article that reminded me to write this entry.

Tags: Catholicism